Search and filters
Search and filters · 1 active
18 dated events match your filters.
Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–18.Back to highlights
Entries
Civil rights era · 1945–1975
-
Durham motorcycle gang member charged with murder in the Cates stabbing
Durham County officers arrested Ronnie Broadwell, 28, a member of the Durham Storm Troopers motorcycle gang, at Watts Hospital early on the morning of the stabbing, and he was charged with murder and held without bond in the Orange County Jail. By November 24 four white men were in jail and a second man, Bryan King of Durham, faced an assault charge.
-
James Cates is killed outside the UNC Student Union
James Lewis Cates Jr., 22, a Black Chapel Hill resident, was stabbed outside the UNC Student Union shortly before 2 a.m. during an all-night dance, in a clash with members of Durham's Storm Troopers motorcycle gang, and died at North Carolina Memorial Hospital. Three white men charged in his death were acquitted by an all-white jury in 1971.
-
Mayor Howard Lee leads a memorial march for James Cates
About 65 people joined a memorial march for James Cates led by Mayor Howard Lee and Alderman R. D. Smith, four days after the killing.
-
Black residents question the police handling of the Cates killing
Black residents met at the Roberson Street Center to discuss how police handled the stabbing, young Black residents of Chapel Hill and Carrboro asked the Justice Department to investigate the campus police, and a fund was started to hire extra counsel for the prosecution. Vice Chancellor Joseph Eagles and Assistant Chancellor Claiborne Jones began reviewing the campus police response.
-
Three Durham men bound over to the grand jury in the Cates killing
At a preliminary hearing in Hillsborough, Ronnie Broadwell, Rufus Nelson and William Johnson were bound over to the Orange County Grand Jury on murder charges and held without bond. Medical testimony indicated that immediate care could have prevented Cates's death.
-
Trial of three Storm Troopers for the death of James Cates opens
Ronnie Broadwell, Rufus Paul Nelson and William Johnson went on trial in Orange County Superior Court in Hillsborough before Judge Thomas Cooper on second-degree murder charges, reduced from first degree. District Solicitor Herbert Pierce prosecuted, and prosecution witnesses placed the three defendants around Cates with weapons.
-
All-white jury acquits three men in the killing of James Cates
A jury of 11 men and one woman, all white, found Ronnie Broadwell, Rufus Paul Nelson and William Johnson not guilty after about an hour and a half of deliberation. The defense called no witnesses.
-
Black Student Movement holds a first-anniversary memorial for James Cates
The Black Student Movement and the Afro-American Society of Chapel Hill High School gathered at noon at the Confederate Monument and marched across campus to the Pit in memory of Cates. The service also protested the killing of William Murphy by a highway patrolman in Ayden.
-
Black Student Movement march remembers James Cates
A Black Student Movement march in memory of James Cates was photographed by Les Todd, whose print is now held in the North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives at Wilson Library.
Recent decades · 1976–2026
-
Family and community march to remember James Cates on the 50th anniversary
A candlelit march went from Hargraves Community Center to St. Joseph CME Church and down Franklin Street to Peace and Justice Plaza, where the Town of Chapel Hill invited residents to leave flowers and messages for the Cates family. Mayor Pam Hemminger pledged to work with the family and UNC to investigate the killing.
-
James Cates Remembrance Coalition proposes naming Student Stores for Cates
A coalition of Cates's family, historian Danita Mason-Hogans and community members proposed renaming UNC's Student Stores building in his honor. The building had not been renamed as of 2024.
-
Chapel Hill Public Library webinar marks the 51st anniversary of the Cates killing
The Chapel Hill Public Library hosted a webinar in which family and friends, including state Senator Valerie Foushee, a first cousin of Cates, reflected on his life and on the failures that followed his death.
-
Justice Department opens a cold-case investigation into the Cates killing
The U.S. Department of Justice opened an investigation into the killing under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act and its cold-case initiative for racially motivated killings before 1980. Cates's cousins Nate Davis and Valerie Foushee welcomed the review.
-
UNC announces a permanent memorial to James Cates in the Pit
Chancellor Kevin M. Guskiewicz announced that a permanent memorial to Cates would be installed in the Pit later in 2022, developed with students, faculty, staff and the Cates family, approved by the Board of Trustees and supported by the Town of Chapel Hill.
-
Chapel Hill names the Hargraves Center gym for Nate Davis
The Town Council unanimously approved naming the Northside Gym at the Hargraves Community Center for Davis, the center's director for more than three decades, and its indoor court for Fred Battle, director from 1970 to 1987.
-
UNC dedicates the James L. Cates Jr. Memorial in the Pit
On the 52nd anniversary of his death, UNC dedicated a black lectern-style marker near the spot where Cates was stabbed, with an inscription from the University and the Town of Chapel Hill. Speakers included Chancellor Kevin M. Guskiewicz, Congresswoman-elect Valerie Foushee for the family, student body president Taliajah Vann and BSM president Julia Clark.
-
Student groups hold a memorial for James Cates in the Pit
The Southern Student Action Coalition, the Black Student Movement, the Community Justice, Abolition and Anti-Racism Collective and the UNC NAACP held a memorial at the Pit, where speakers criticized the wording and placement of the 2022 plaque.
-
Students and residents mark 55 years since the killing of James Cates
The Carolina NAACP chapter and the Black Student Movement held a remembrance for Cates on campus, and student leaders again called the 2022 plaque's passive wording inadequate.
Suggest a correction to an entry →
A dated event is a fact, filed on the page of the subject it belongs to: a person, a place, a theme, or a named event or history. Pages are subjects, with their own works and sources; the Place, community, or institution filter also gathers the institutions that recur in the entries without a page of their own. The page opens on the highlights; a search or any filter looks through every dated event and storyline, and each filter’s counts say how many entries choosing it would show alongside the others. A storyline is a longer history that gathers related dated events, and each storyline’s page lists its own. Counts give dated events and storylines separately. Dates come from the sources named on the cards and from the index’s event pages; where sources disagree, the card follows the county records. Entries marked approximate or needing research say so on the card; the rest were checked against the source named on it. The correction link under the entries opens the contact form; name the entry and its date and the Friends will check the source. Suggest an event →
Compiled and maintained by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library from county records, the sources named on each card, and the index’s event pages. Last updated October 2, 2026.
